


nostos - monochrome

by EzzyDean



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, NagiRin Week 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4443464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzzyDean/pseuds/EzzyDean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A memory, a flash of color, a scent.</p><p>Each moment means something different to everyone involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. nostalgia/dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Days/Chapters 1-4 can be read as loosely connected. Days 5 & 6 are connected to each other but not the others. Day 7 is it's own AU.

Blacks, reds, greys, blues.  They filled his life, his wardrobe, his room.  His sheets were dark blues, stripes of white or grey.  His bags, his shirts, his hats.  Swatches of dark colors painting his life.  He didn’t mind it, he preferred it actually.  The dark colors grounded him, gave him an anchor in the too bright world, kept him from getting too frightened with memories tinted the same colors and made it so much easier to keep an eye out for the bright dreams glimmering somewhere in front of him.

Which is why they stand out even more.  A sprig of paleness in his otherwise dark surroundings.  An unusual beacon of light.

The vase is a dark glass, even better to draw attention to the flowers within, and it always sits on the table near his bed right beside his phone when he charges it at night.  A thin gold ribbon is tied around the narrowest part of the vase and stars are etched randomly along the surface, barely visible in the right light but always there, just under the surface, soft to the touch when you found them.

It isn’t really practical to always have it filled like this.  They can cost an arm and a leg in the wrong season.  But after all these years they are almost as necessary as the darkness.

Lilacs.  The color.  The scent.  The look of the small flowers nestled together.  The touch of softness in the harsh lines of his world.

He takes one deep breath before drifting off to sleep and thinks of Nagisa.  Of brightness and sunshine and springs spent in the grass under trees.

–

Everything about him was colorful.  Yellows, pale greens, light oranges, baby blues.  He was soft and bright.  His room was bathed in sunlights and his wardrobe painted with a soft rainbow.  He was clouds and springtime and sunshine on a lake.  Floating higher and higher with the world spread below him, any dream and future waiting just past his fingers if he wants to reach for it.  It was a little frightening, a little overwhelming sometimes to be the soft one, the fun one, the cheery one.

It grounds him, he says defensively one bad day when the world feels like it’s pressing him inside out, it helps keep the worse feelings at bay.  It’s a dark vibrant anchor in his usually bright pale world.  Easy to spot and wrap around himself when he needs to remember to breathe.

The dark fabric sticks out on his pale bedspread, an anchor to tether him to reality even as he drifts to sleep.  Red wine and deep purple skies seem to have melted together to shimmer this blanket into existence, like it’s made of starlight and promises, and specks of gold and silver catch the setting sun.  He can’t explain how the soft brush of fabric against his skin calms him, how it sends him into pleasant dreams of cool nights and stormy days.

He clenches the velvety fabric in his fingers and smiles as he falls asleep reminded of Rin.  Of beaches at sunset and stars in the night and the feeling of home on his lips.


	2. sweets/flowers

Bright colors, bursts of sugar, tiny little pieces of fluff and sunshine and love.  Pale stars, ripples and ruffles and sprinkles of flavor.  Candy crisp shells, sugar sweet coatings.  Delicate features topped with ribbons and swirls and bitter explosions hidden just under the surface.

Rin did not do sweet things.

Which made the fact that he was curled around just about the sweetest thing he had ever come into contact with all that much more ironic.

Nagisa was the burst of sugar on his tongue, soft and sweet under the brittle armor of a colorful candy shell.  The swirl of pale flavor in his darker colored life.  Frosting sweet against his lips and settling heavy in his stomach.

Nagisa sniffles in his sleep and buries his nose against Rin’s neck with an almost whimper.  He is warm and soft against Rin’s chest, almost like a living blanket wrapped around him, and Rin settles deeper into the couch with a content sigh.  They don’t get to do this often, their lives are in different cities right now, on different paths that seldom overlap.  So he soaks in every moment he can, devours enough sweetness from Nagisa to last him the weeks and months until they can meet again.

Nagisa has spoiled Rin.  Manufactured candy and fancy cakes have nothing on the sweetness of Nagisa’s lips when he presses kisses to Rin’s.

-

His fingers dip and flutter between the silky smooth petals, flowers bowing under the gentle pressure of his hand.  They bob in little waves from the breeze of the open doorway and Nagisa frowns.  He doesn’t understand the point of buying flowers.  The act of giving someone something that dies in a week or less.  Watching them wilt and fall from their stunning beginnings.  Seeing the steel backbone of their stem struggling to uphold the withering beauty of the petals, colors draining and dripping and curling up on themselves.  It’s rather sad.

He especially doesn’t understand the point of sending flowers when he has the most beautiful flower ever: Rin.  Rin is tall and proud and strong and more vibrant than a bouquet of sunflowers, more romantic than ten dozen red roses, more stunning than anything he can see in this flower shop.

Rin is heavy on his mind, he had just left this morning and Nagisa already misses him so much.  The feeling of his fingers in his hair, his lips pressed to Nagisa’s forehead, his arms tight around him as they said goodbye.  His mind is filled with discarded flower petals, curled and dried and crisp under his mental footsteps.  Rin would never be that to him, would never be as fleeting as a cheap bouquet of flowers wilting in a windowsill, forgotten in the daily bustle of life, nearly invisible in the background.

He doesn’t understand the point of buying flowers, but he buys them anyway.  Fills in Rin’s address with his energetic handwriting, putting as much love into each stroke of the pen as he can.  He doesn’t understand it but Rin loves the lilacs, loves placing them on his bedside table and looking at them, so the least Nagisa can do is share the cost of them once in awhile even if no flower can ever compare to Rin in his mind.


	3. spring

Spring followed winter.

Day followed night.

Nagisa followed Rin.

It was that simple.  As simple as knowing he should wear gloves when it snowed and that too much sugar before bed gave him nightmares.  As simple as curling up and spotting animals in the clouds.

As simple as falling in love with Rin.

There had been no thought.  No considerations.  No soul searching.

Just looking up one day and seeing his eyes bright with laughter despite everything and thinking: _Oh.  I love him._

Cold days turned less crisp, the air wasn’t yanked from his lungs when he tried to breath.  Snow gave way to the frail grass pushing up.  Green colored the world outside his window, spotted with pinks and blues and purples as he watched.

And so spring followed winter.

Darkness bloomed into daylight in a splash of orange and gold.  Stars hiding behind the light of the sun and slipping into their sleep.  The sharp insecurities of the moonlight covered world turning fuzzy and soft in the sunlight, dipping down and sighing under the blanket of the warmth of the day.

And so day followed night.

Sharp words bite and brew and bubble between them but never for long.  Softness sweeps in before the wounds can fester, feather soft touches between weighted looks.  Pushing and pushing and pushing away, both daring the other to drop first.  But they don’t.  They grow and change and stay the same deep in their hearts.  There isn’t anywhere they go that they go alone, no matter who is where or when or why.

And so Nagisa followed Rin.

It’s as simple as waking up to the sound of a heartbeat under his ear and love in his eyes, lilacs on the table and a scarf draped over the back of the couch as sunlight peeks through the curtains, making the wine red blanket shimmer around them.

He blinks and looks up, taking in a face a little too pale for his own good right now and the exhaustion that seems to tug at him even when he’s asleep, and smiles.

 _Oh,_ Nagisa thinks, _God do I love him._


	4. letters

It’s the very last thing he packs everytime he leaves someplace and the first thing he owns that gets put away when he stops somewhere new.  It’s a security blanket made of paper and ink and stamps and love.  So much love that Rin doesn’t even know what to do with it all.  

Tied together with a simple red ribbon are envelopes of every size and color - scent too technically but that has faded over time leaving just a general smell of paper and dust and fading smells of lilacs and lavender - with handwriting that starts off as childish and keeps a bubble of immaturity to it no matter how much neater and flowing it becomes.  Pages upon pages fill them, words scattered like the sender’s thoughts.  Each crease is well worn, edges smoothed with time, and the ink has smeared from age here and there, words becoming nearly illegible.  It’s perfectly fine though.  Rin’s had them memorized for years.

Even the ones that were stained by tears before they ever made it to him, smudges and smears covering the paper, blotches of ink mirroring other blotches when the page was folded as if the writer was too frantic to get their thoughts out and away to Rin before they could overwhelm them.

That first batch were all signed the same:

_Your Friend,_

_Hazuki Nagisa_

Your friend.  As if simply by writing it down over and over Nagisa was determined to make the words come true, stay true.  He was bound and determined to be Rin’s friend.  The words seem so formal, so distant, yet they had touched Rin’s heart even when it was small and shriveled and lost.  

Before long they morphed.  Grew and changed and matured in that way that never really matures.

_Friends Forever,_

_Hazuki Nagisa_

Sweeter, kinder, less insistent.  A playful lilt to the words that made Rin wonder about the playfulness of the sender.  Made him wonder who Nagisa was now.  Even with his difficulties and hardships that were so different than Rin’s but just as important.  It made him wonder if that ball of sunshine was still as brilliant as ever.

Eventually the distance of Australia to Japan shrunk to the distance of Samezuka to Iwatobi.  The words slipped and slid and cut themselves short.  Not rude; just informal, comfortable in a way they hadn’t been able to be in a long time.

_\- Nagisa_

Then, once more the distance grew, the words changed.

He’s not entirely sure of the moment his brain slid from loving being around Nagisa to simply being in love with him.  He just remembers waking up one morning, far too far away from his friends and family but knowing he had their support, and realizing the only thing he wanted right then was to wake up to a message from Nagisa.

There hadn’t been anything on his phone so he had slipped out of bed and padded to the dresser in yet another room that would never be anything permanent and pulled out a bundle of envelopes from the top drawer.

His fingers lingered over harsher lines of newer paper, folds still crisp and a little crooked, like Nagisa had been in too much of a hurry to get them right.  Which is funny when he looked at them and lets his mind wander.  Funny because Nagisa had always been so patient with Rin in his own way, or maybe it was more stubborn than patient.

Either way, trust Nagisa to have barrelled ahead and reached the conclusion first.  

The letter had been waiting for Rin when he unlocked the door of his newest apartment.

_Love Always,_

_Nagisa_


	5. samezuka!nagisa/iwatobi!rin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter and the next are both in an AU/future where Rin is a teacher for Iwatobi (and swim coach for the team) and Nagisa is a student counselor for Samezuka who specializes in working with teens who compete in sports.

The sky is the clearest Rin thinks he’s ever seen it for the tournament, at least as clear as it’s ever been since he participated in it himself.  Maybe there’s always been a touch of nostalgia dimming the tournament in previous years as he always thought back and remembered heated arguments, sparks of jealousy, shuttered glances, clouded dreams.  Now he can look back and see the bright skies and clear water and feel his friend’s hand on his shoulders.  

Blue and white jackets file past him and he grins as his boys excitedly chatter and playfully shove each other around, nerves filling with an electricity that Rin remembers well.  He never would have expected to be wearing a blue and white jacket with Iwatobi slapped on the back - other than the time he got stuck in the rain and had to borrow Haru’s dumb jacket that smelled like equal parts fish market, chlorine, and dish soap - but here he is.  It’s funny where life takes you when you stop trying to direct it yourself.  He’s only been a teacher at Iwatobi for a year and the coach for the team for about 8 months but now that he’s here he really can’t imagine being anywhere else.

Even when black sleeves with white and red details catch his eye and he watches familiar jackets - nearly identical to the one he still has in his closet at home - shuffle into the locker rooms with an almost familiar laugh leading them.

Rin shakes his head because there’s no way the laugh he thought he heard was real.  Just another line from the past weaving itself into the present.

-

Rin thinks that his life must be on a roll for funny turns of events because apparently that laugh was exactly who he thought it sounded like.  Sunny blond hair and bright pink eyes look up at him with wonder as he steadies them both from their collision.  His fingers dig into a Samezuka jacket as Nagisa’s clutch his Iwatobi one seconds before Nagisa bursts out laughing.

“Oh my God Rinrin you look adorable in Iwatobi colors.”

“Nagisa!” He snaps immediately, darting his eyes round in hopes none of his team is close enough to hear the ridiculous nickname.  “Where the hell did you get a Samezuka jacket that fits you?  Don’t tell me you’re a coach or something.”

Nagisa frowns up at him and huffs.  “Rude, Rin-chan.  Rude.”  He wiggles his nose in a way Rin has always found fascinatingly cute and squares his shoulders.  “I am a student counselor who focuses mainly on teens in sports programs.  Making sure they don’t push themselves too hard or get discouraged by the pressure of studying and being the best.”  The words are dished out in such a matter of fact tone that Rin knows he’s not the first person, or even in the first hundred people, Nagisa has explained this to.

“I just never would have expected you to wind up working at Samezuka.”

“Says the guy coaching Iwatobi now.”

Rin opens his mouth to respond only to be interrupted by a dark haired teen approaching them.

“Hazuki-sensei?  We’re getting ready to head in now.  Were you joining us in the locker room or heading up to the stands?”  

Nagisa turns and flashes an excited smile.  “Ah, I’ll be right there Kazuki-kun.”  Eyes back on Rin he slips into a devious grin.  “We’ve got a pretty amazing relay team this year.  Hope your boys are up to the challenge.”

Rin grins back.  “Always.”


	6. rewards

Nagisa pauses, a frown flickering across his lips for the briefest of moments when Rin’s eyes drop to the phone in his lap for the third time in the past ten minutes.  He knows his methods of dealing with the teens he works with isn’t exactly the most thrilling of conversation topics for some people but it was Rin who brought it up and now he’s all but ignoring Nagisa.

His eyes narrow before he slips into an innocent expression.

“Well like I said I really prefer using a rewards based system.  Setting safe and reasonable goals for the boys and then having rewards and prizes to choose from when they meet them, but no actual punishments if they don’t.  Like this conversation, for instance, had you been paying attention to me I would have totally rewarded you with a nice passionate kiss, tongue and all, but sadly you’re not paying attention at all.”

Rin’s eyes snap back to his and Nagisa smiles as a blush floods his cheeks.

“What did you just say?”

“You’re not listening to me, Rin.  If you didn’t want to go out after the tournament you could have said no.  We’re adults.  I can take rejection.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to it’s just.  Well.”  Rin groans and props his chin in his hand. “It feels a little weird.”

“Because we’re eating together, because we haven’t even talked in like years or because we made that little bet on the competition?”

“Because technically we work for rival schools.”

It takes a moment for Rin’s words to sink in and when they do Nagisa can’t help but laugh a little at the drama behind them.  “Don’t worry, Rin-chan.  We’re not star crossed lovers or anything.  No one is going to see us and demand a show down between our schools.”

“You don’t know Hikari,” Rin mumbles and shakes his head.  “She’s frightening.  And dedicated to Iwatobi.”

“A student of yours?”

“And team manager.  She is a lot like Gou was at that age.”

“Adorable yet frightening.  I understand.”  Nagisa sighs happily as he finishes his milkshake and slides the glass to the edge of the table.  “But regardless.  We’re two adults having a meal together.  Two friends catching up.”  He pokes Rin’s knees with his foot and winks when Rin looks up at him.  “It doesn’t have to be a date if you don’t want it to be, Rin-chan.”

“And if I want it to be?”  Rin’s voice is cocky and sure, at odds with the flush that’s back on his cheeks when Nagisa presses on his knee again, and Nagisa chuckles as the waitress drops off their check.

“Then you might still be able to earn that reward.”


	7. fantasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vampire au. I have no excuses nor explanations.

Sometimes he misses things about the way his life used to be.  The feeling of excitement pounding through his veins.  The blush of life across his cheeks as he laughs.  The taste of garlic on his pizza - that was an uncalled for downside he never saw coming.  Though that had more to do with his heightened senses than any of the “documented” reasonings.  (He also sneezed a hell of a lot when he got too close to pepper or cinnamon which sucked because, hello, cinnamon sprinkled on hot chocolate was one of the best things ever and none of that vampire-friendly crap tasted even close to right.  So unfair.)

An alarm blares next to his ear and he swats at the phone on his bed until it shuts off.  His dreams had been filled with cinnamon hot chocolates and garlicy pizzas and vanilla shakes with extra vanilla syrup.

“Totally unfair,” Nasiga mumbles to himself as he rolls off his bed and shuffles out of his room.

“What are you whining about now?”  Rin’s voice wafts out from the bathroom on a cloud of steam scented like… Nagisa’s nose wrinkles and wriggles and he sighs again.  Rose petals.  A vampire who smells like rose petals.  How boring.  The companies made so many amazing scents and he got stuck with a roommate who smells like rose petals.  Not even real ones but that slightly too cloying artificial smell that only comes from shampoos and fancy hotel bathroom soaps.

“I am contemplating the unfairness of the inability of science to make a proper tasting cinnamon substitute for us.”  Rin mutters something that sounds like “not this again” as Nagisa sticks his head in the bathroom and debates flushing the toilet just for the hell of it - and for the joy of listening to Rin complain about “fluctuating shower temps that make it impossible to properly clean himself” like the nerd he is.

It’s probably close to an hour later that Rin finally finishes his beauty routine and settles onto the couch next to Nagisa.

“A year and a half we’ve been roommates in this place and I still can’t believe it takes you this long to get ready when you wake up.”  Nagisa tosses the magazine he’d been flipping through onto the coffee table and turns to Rin with a grin.

“Unlike some people I like to do more than wake up, rub cotton candy scented crap on my hair and face, and run off into the night.”

“There’s no reason I can think of to spend an hour and a half in the bathroom at any time unless it involves a bathtub and bubbles.”

“What are you?  Twelve?”

“Well,” Nagisa draws out the word in a way he knows sets Rin’s nerves on edge, “I was 16 when I was turned about a hundred years ago.” He scrunches his face up like he’s doing mental math before fixing Rin a look that makes him squirm uncomfortably. “Which makes me at least 50 years older than your newly bitten ass.”

He knows if Rin had the ability to he’d be blushing in irritation right now as he scowls and fidgets with the plush pillow on the couch between them; the fact that Rin is a younger vampire than Nagisa has always been a slightly touchy topic.  Even if Rin was technically a year older than Nagisa when he was turned not quite 50 years ago, Nagisa has seniority.

“Can we just go back to talking about your distaste for artificially flavored cinnamon?”  Rin asks as he scowls at the pillow.

“Oh my.  Guh-” Nagisa growls and clenches at the air like he’s trying to strangle the comment.  “It’s like fat free chocolate.  It’s bullshit and we all know it!”


End file.
